Commonly owned U.S. Pat. No. 4,793,539 to Haenni et al discloses a dispensing nozzle for serially dispensing plastic grocery bags or the like from a supply roll and wherein the supply roll is composed of bags which are serially joined along perforated severance lines. The nozzle disclosed in the Haenni et al patent includes a slot of zigzag configuration, together with a thread-up opening disposed along one side of the slot, and the nozzle is disclosed as being mounted in a bore in a grocery store checkout countertop, with the bag supply roll being mounted below the countertop. In use, the leading edge of the initial bag on the roll is manually threaded through the thread-up opening, and the leading edge is then grasp and moved laterally into the slot. Thereafter, the bags may be individually delivered by pulling the bags upwardly and laterally outwardly, and the zigzag slot exerts sufficient resistance so as to cause a severing of the leading bag from the immediately following bag along the perforated severance line.
While the dispensing nozzle disclosed in the above referenced Haenni et al patent represents a significant advance in the art, it possesses certain limitations in use. Specifically, the plastic bags may be withdrawn in only one lateral direction, i.e., in a direction away from the thread-up opening, since moving the bag laterally toward the thread-up opening will cause the bag to move into the opening, with the result that insufficient resistance is imported to the bag to effect the desired severance. Also, the nozzle is not adapted for bags of significantly different sizes, and a second nozzle having a different slot size or configuration may be required for larger or smaller bags.
It is accordingly an object of the present invention to provide a plastic bag dispensing nozzle which overcomes the limitations of the above described prior nozzle.
It is a more specific object of the present invention to provide a plastic bag dispensing nozzle which permits the bags to be withdrawn from the slot in either lateral direction with equal effectiveness, and which permits bags of varying size to be dispensed through a single nozzle.